NT Doctrine — 1 John 3

Posted on February 15, 2025 by ehurst

John refers to his readers as the progeny of God, His beloved brood. The world at large is the brood of Satan, so it recognizes neither our Father nor us. While we are His children already, the fullness of what that means has not yet been revealed. Somewhere out in the future, this will be fully manifested. When Christ returns for us, we shall see His eternal form, and simply seeing this will transform us to be eternal like Him. People who are looking forward to that day work hard to shed their fleshly nature as much as possible, trying to be like Jesus.

(The pseudo-Christian cultists didn’t fight their fleshly nature at all.)

It’s one thing to miscalculate what God intends; that’s the nature of childhood. Nobody’s children are perfect. Otherwise, we’d call them something other than “children”. But people who sin habitually are diving deep into injustice. They are rejecting the Father’s dominion. They aren’t His kids; they are foreigners. Jesus came to open the divine covenant and rescue people from their fleshly natures. He had no sin; He was the mature adult Son of His Father. Thus, we who have accepted His offer aren’t habitual sinners. Habitual sinners have never encountered Jesus.

So there are two kinds of people in the world. Those who belong to Jesus strive to live just and righteous like He did. Everyone else belongs to sin; they are children of the Devil, because the Devil rejected his Creator’s will for him right from the start. That’s why God sent His Son — to clean up the damage the Devil had done. When God reclaims a soul from Satan, He gives that soul a spiritual nature it did not previously have. That soul can no longer be at peace with habitual sin; it’s contrary to who they are. Moreover, those who lack that spiritual nature, who still belong to the Devil, are quite obvious by how they live. They have no interest in pleasing the Father. Keep your eye out for anyone who treats any believer with contempt.

We should hardly be surprised that the spiritually dead folks don’t like us. Do you remember Cain and Abel? They were two different kinds of men; Cain had no power to overcome his fleshly annoyance at this brother’s holiness. Our power to love each other is the proof that we have moved from the Abyss into the Kingdom of Heaven. Those who fail to manifest that kind of sacrificial love for believers are still dead. That kind of self-centered spite is the root of murder. People who can hate believers have never experienced spiritual birth.

The reason we have any grasp on love at all is because of the example of Christ taking up His Cross. Following Him means having that same level of commitment; we are ready to die for our fellow believers. How would you call it “sacrificial love” if someone is unwilling to sacrifice so much as a little of the material goods of this world for a brother in the Lord? It’s not enough to say the right words, but we must act on those words and live that truth.

The power to sacrifice for a fellow believer is all the assurance we need that we belong to Christ. Don’t listen to a condemned fleshly conscience; God’s voice in our spirits is louder than such a false testimony. Eventually the conscience will learn the truth and cease to condemn us, and we will see clearly God’s favor on us. It gives us the confidence to bring our requests before Him, knowing that He wants what is best for us.

His will for us is that we submit fully to His Son, swearing our undying allegiance. And His Son said His royal law for us was to love each other as He loves us. The folks who keep that law can do so only because of His Presence in their souls. When we can recognize that Presence in our souls, it becomes our assurance in serving Him.

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Give It a Shot

Posted on February 11, 2025 by ehurst

This is just my personal expectations…

I’m convinced Trump and Netanyahu will not stop until they have evacuated all the Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. From what I’ve read so far, they are putting a very hard squeeze on several different national governments to accept the Palestinians. If nothing else, I would bet they simply push them into Syria and Iraq in the absence of a strong central government that could organize to prevent it.

I’m sure Trump will do what he can to fund a building program of refugee housing and maybe even some reasonable infrastructure for life support to receive them. I don’t believe he’s lying about that. Meanwhile, various Islamic governments will most certainly object and find ways to fight the dispossession of Palestinians. What we’ve seen so far as forces have supported Palestinian resistance has been piddling by comparison to what they might do when expulsion actually gets started.

I find it hard to believe that this isn’t going to result in a serious commitment of American troops to the Middle East. I’m sure people will call it a war, but I doubt it will be an actual national mobilization (declaration of war), but more like a “police action” kind of deployment. That’s the same stuff the US has been doing in that region already, so this would be just a different flavor.

Still, it would be a major drain on resources. It’s part of the motivation for DOGE. All the bogus spending the Democrats/globalists have been doing for decades will simply shift to a different program. Instead of USAid to news agencies and globalist agitation, it will be military aid to promote Zionist dreams. And instead of secret funding, this will be quite out in the open.

As the resistance to Zionism escalates quickly, so will the crackdown from the US government. Right now it’s on the back burner, but censorship is just waiting for the right moment. When anti-Zionism starts looking like treason against the US at war, that’s when it will get ugly.

I have no idea what kind of timeline this would follow, but some of this has already started. I’m just pointing out what direction it seems to be headed. I believe Trump’s resolve is that strong.

While the US opposition needs no excuse, I’m willing to bet they will see this as a major opportunity. Any such commitment of US resources will galvanize resistance and further polarize the population. This is likely the time when states will openly talk of secession to avoid supporting something they hate.

In the face of this tribulation, let me remind all my readers that the Covenant works. We will come through this just fine. If you take the Covenant seriously, it will cover you. It’s not an intellectual commitment, but a heart-led feudal submission to Christ the Person.

I’ve tried to warn for many years that the mainstream model of religion here in the US is entirely cerebral and emotional. People talk of “Jesus in your heart” but their concept of “heart” still ends up being a sales pitch conversion with a shallow commitment, not a full feudal submission to Christ as Lord. Thus, the bulk of mainstream church stuff is emotional and cerebral, not faith conviction.

Our community recently lost a few members who were committed on that shallow level. We had been worried they were fake in that sense. Their instincts from lifelong influences of the mainstream churchian ways held them too tightly. We wish them well; we had hopes they would get it, but they didn’t belong. Despite our best efforts, we could not help them find the peace with God they were seeking.

Trust me; I know how hard it is to break that pattern of thinking. Embracing the Covenant path is not a small thing. Our community offers spiritual covering for those who want what we have. You can’t do this without a firm conviction. If this looks like home for you, give it a shot.

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NT Doctrine — 1 John 2

Posted on February 8, 2025 by ehurst

The unifying factor in the various cults plaguing John’s ministry in Ephesus — Gnostics, Nicolaitans, and followers of Cerinthus — was immoral living. Each had their own excuse, but it was transparent to any follower of Christ that these former church folks were desperately seeking for an exit back into sin and wanted to drag as many church folks as they could with them.

The Gnostics in particular were arrogant about their “superior insight” and intellectual acumen, so John uses schoolboy Greek grammar to shut them down. He begins the chapter by referring to his readers as preschoolers, using this simple language anyone could understand. The whole point of this letter is to stop sin. Since our fleshly natures are weak, as we see with toddlers making natural mistakes, we can take comfort in knowing that our Lord is patient and indulgent with those who love Him. Jesus walked in the flesh and takes up for us in the Presence of His Father.

You cannot claim to know (gnosis) God without a tendency to act as He requires. Even toddlers can work that out. Maturity is walking in His teaching. And it’s not that hard to figure out, just do what Jesus said and did.

On the one hand, it’s the same old covenant truth from ancient times: Submit to God as your Father and Lord. At the same time, it’s still very fresh in Christ, as He is the New Covenant in person. John chose to write in prophetic terms of how the revelation of God had progressed in steps ending at Jesus. Darkness is being washed out by the light of Christ. So, what did Jesus say was His single greatest command? Love your fellow believers as He did. Walking in the light means you cannot detest those who have escaped the darkness. The light of the Spirit changes our attitudes. You either see your fellow believers as the precious treasures of this life, or you are still blind.

Like children, we love the Father who adopted us. Like elders, we have embraced the ancient truth. Like men of fighting age, we have fought the Darkness and won. John repeats this, affirming that his readers are that kind of people.

You cannot cling to this world. The fleshly nature belongs here and will stay here when you leave it. Fleshly appetites, the expectation of being able to know everything by your intellect, and the arrogance of trusting in the flesh are not spiritual gifts. They are marks of the Fall; if you cling to those things, you cannot understand the Spirit. You’ll then die when this world dies, but those who seek to obey the Lord will pass on into Eternity.

We come to that term “last hour” — a Hebraic concept meaning that God has no unfinished business in this world. Sending His Son was the last step of revelation calling us back to Him. The next time He does something with this world, He will pull the plug. We know this because folks have left the churches and manifested the spirits of anti-christian teaching. This could not happen until there was a Christ to which dark spirits could contrast themselves.

John implies that Satan and his allies weren’t fully aware of what Christ would do when He came, and didn’t quite realize what kind of handicap they faced in trying to keep men alienated from God. That job required sending people to walk among the Christians and then rebelling from the particular teachings of Christ about subjecting the flesh to the Spirit and walking in holy conduct. Those people left because they were never a part of the Elect, but they would have had no power to seduce if they didn’t first absorb some elements of Christ’s message.

With the Presence of the Holy Spirit, we can grasp the true gift of relief from the burden of our sinful nature ruling over us. That’s the one thing that escaped those who abandoned the gospel. For them, fighting sin by the flesh was a far greater burden than just giving into it. That’s why they never belonged to the church in the first place. John’s audience understands this. He isn’t telling them something they don’t know but reminding of them to encourage them to stay the course.

Denying that Christ came in the flesh is a primary marker of the spirit of Antichrist. You cannot claim the Father’s peace and reject His Son. If you cling to the Son, you cling to the Father, and you will see them in Eternity. Don’t fall for the fancy lies of the heretics. Indeed, you don’t need that level of teaching; His Spirit in your spirit will make it obvious those people are lying. When the Lord returns, those liars will run and hide, but we will run to greet Him. And you already have a good idea who will be running alongside you: the people who walk as Jesus did on this earth, like children of the Father.

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Jehovah Jireh

Posted on February 7, 2025 by ehurst

I’m praying that you are ready; I want you to handle tribulation with aplomb. Think about it.

You remember the shortages in connection with the COVID restrictions? That was intentional; certain bigshots admitted that they were trying to destroy the economy. Some businesses never recovered. Right where I live today several businesses were shut down and never reopened. A few new ones opened up in their places, but overall, the market for some consumer goods and services is smaller now.

Some of you may not remember the longshoremen’s strike not long after that. Had it run into a month, it would have been worse than the COVID shutdowns because we are still entirely too dependent on imports. The strike ended after a few days, but there is still no contract, just a truce. What would it take to renew the strike?

Once again, my whole point is to ask you to do some research. What would you consume if the only supply was only local? I recommend that you do whatever you can to shift your habits to emphasize the local supply. Don’t make too many radical decisions at once; simply look into it. Be aware of what it might look like.

Trump’s tariffs will hit a lot of things you wouldn’t expect. I realize that, in part, he is trying to encourage bringing industrial production back home to the US, but we aren’t there yet. It will take time; we spent decades off-shoring that stuff in the first place.

Nor is this merely a question of imports from off-shore, but there are already major problems with interstate supply within the US. That Hurricane Helene? She tore up a lot of peach and pecan groves. It takes several years to get new trees back to production stage, usually five years at a minimum. If you live in an area where pecans and peaches are not locally grown, you might want to take that into account as the prices will go up more than just the inflation rate.

The American consumer market is fragile, riding along on a knife’s edge. It won’t take much to break something. This is not about prepping or survivalism. Yes, you could stock up on some items, but my point is more at making you aware and resilient, less dependent on human provision. Be ready to adapt. Invest time and resources into yourself so that you can be ready to keep the gospel message alive during the coming testing.

Seek the Lord’s face on these questions.

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Reprise: Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage

Posted on February 6, 2025 by ehurst

Coming back to our parish examination of what constitutes “law” for those under the Covenant of Christ in general, and Kiln of the Soul parish in particular, we should address the issue of divorce and remarriage.

The first thing to do is disentangle from the mainstream churches’ fierce defense of American law; it is entirely unchristian. American marriage law is an ugly, materialistic contract with the government as a the major party. The couple are not contracting with each other, but with the government for enforcement. And the government has done a horrific bad job of it, making noises about what really matters between a couple, but really only interested in seizing control of physical property, and then treating the children as property, as well.

I recommend private ritual ceremonies and frankly advise people not to involve the government in any way. If the covenant community cannot make it work, then it was doomed from the start. The Old Testament references to marriage assume a covenant community. Everything Jesus said about marriage, divorce and remarriage assumes the whole nation is a covenant community. The provisions don’t work outside of that.

Paul discusses things from an entirely different angle. His letters mentioning marriage were all published before any of the Gospels were. Whatever Paul knew about it came from his PhD background in the Talmud, and his later post-graduate level study with the risen Christ in Arabia. He says something slightly different than Christ taught because too many in Paul’s audience were Gentile converts bring into Christ their pagan marriages.

Unlike most of the other Apostles, Paul was supremely fluent in Greek. He knew all the grammar rules and when they could and should be bent or broken. You cannot really trust English translations on this. If you drill down to what he was actually saying, particularly in his Corinthian letters, the issue boils down to this: If your spouse is a full member of the Covenant, then the rules are whatever Christ taught. If your spouse has a no connection, or a dubious connection, to the covenant community, then it’s a different game entirely.

Once you are in the Covenant, you have no business getting married to someone outside of it. But we are assuming the majority were coming into the Covenant already married.

If your covenant life destroys whatever marriage you brought into it, then you take the loss and move on with your covenant life. If you find that you simply cannot live alone and ignore the sexual urges, it’s okay to remarry inside the covenant. Your marriage outside the covenant can be sanctified and brought in under the covering, but not if your spouse holds out. You want to try to keep your family under the covering as much as possible, but you can’t treat them as slaves.

If it looks like that’s gone forever, then you should try to do without. Paul was referencing the persecution and general tribulation of his time as the primary reason for turning to celibacy. While ours is a different situation, it is nonetheless tribulation and persecution for covenant people. If marriage doesn’t work, I recommend celibacy for prophetic reasons.

However, this is not a hard and fast rule. If you feel led by God to remarry, let’s counsel about that, because the door remains open for remarriage. By no means is this on the same terms as our pagan/secular American society. We decide remarriage on the same grounds as marriage in the first place: If the pairing serves a covenant purpose, then by all means, proceed.

Tangential but important: It’s not about falling in love. That’s the dumbest reason for anything humans do. What matters most is that it’s a good idea based on the assumptions of the Covenant life. Romantic affection will grow on its own accord. It does not come first, but last. I realize that’s really tough for American women in particular, and it warrants an awful lot of teaching and reviewing to break down that demonic stronghold.

For remarriage: Yes, you know that you’ve lost something that you cannot recover. That first partner imprinting will be a glitch you must live with the rest of your lives. It’s not insurmountable, but you must be extra vigilant against the Enemy forever after. The power of imprinting God built into us is not going to support your marriage for anyone who has had sex with anyone else. That’s a primary meaning of “defilement” — something God gave us is missing. Don’t confuse the ritual meaning of defilement with the spiritual meaning.

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God Is Tired

Posted on February 5, 2025 by ehurst

The headlines are blaring this morning: Trump will send American troops to Gaza and cleanse the land of Palestinians! That’s not exactly what Trump said, of course, but it does reflect the shocking words and actions of our President.

The tariffs he announced last week sent the stock market into a tailspin. We expected the lefties to throw a fit, but even conservative economists are complaining: Trump Bites the Hand that Feeds Us says Peter Schiff. You can find similar noise from the likes of Michael Hudson and others.

Let’s be clear: By no means do I defend Trump’s actions. Rather, I want to respond to what’s happening from a biblical point of view. Also, I want to help our parish members prepare for what God is doing in this time of tribulation.

I’ve already pointed out that the core policy for Trump seems to be a return to the Monroe Doctrine as a way to face a multipolar world. That part in itself is not a bad idea, in the sense that it’s probably the best he could do in the circumstances. That doesn’t mean good things are coming. The various commentators are quite correct that a Monroe-based tariff war with the world is going to hurt us economically.

Without getting lost in too many details, the outline goes like this: It will make the dollar very strong against other currencies, at least temporarily. It will cut us off from a very large portion of our current imported goods market, as Schiff notes in his story about apples and oranges. We can grow tons of apples just fine, but oranges have to be imported to keep the price down. We simply do not produce enough oranges for our own consumption, so the price will soar. It’s a small example of a much larger problem Schiff sees.

This is the kind of whining you expect from materialists. It’s accurate, but it’s also not that important. The bottom line is that economists are just about the ultimate in materialism and worshiping Mammon. Americans at large won’t be happy, but Covenant people should know better.

God favors decentralization; that’s a primary lesson of the Tower of Babel. God knew that “world peace” would foster such catastrophic wickedness that humans must be tribal and compete for resources. A global economy is anathema. God demands that we learn to live with what He provides locally. If we want something else, we have to move and fight whoever is already living there.

That’s how it works outside the Covenant. We don’t care much about this world, except as it offers opportunities to promote Eternity. The Covenant demands that we carry an eternal focus in all we do in this life. Human conflict is simply not a concern in itself, only how conflict should be done. We oppose a global peace and trade in the first place because God opposes that.

Humans demand a return to Eden, but they assume Eden is supposed to be here in this world. They don’t realize that entering Eden means leaving this world. Thus, all human ambition is misguided and rejects God’s offer. A means of global government and trade is a flat rejection of God’s Word.

So, sure, buy the stuff offered at the grocery store when you can afford it; it’s not a big deal either way. But don’t be surprised when the day comes you can afford only beans and grains, and maybe locally grown veggies on the side. That’s about all God ever promised in the first place. If you do a good job of walking in the Covenant, He will surely provide more than that, but as long as people ignore/reject His Covenant, things will appear to swing upward until He gets tired of it.

God has gotten tired of it, okay?

While He promised in general terms that His children would at least have bread and beans to keep His message alive, those outside the Covenant will get whatever the Devil wants to give them. It’s a signature of the Devil to sucker people, bait-n-switch. He offers all kinds of luxury. Once he has people trapped, he destroys them. He delights in their suffering and death. It works somewhat on the small individual scale, but Satan’s real focus is the human race at large, and he works across multiple generations. You have to see it at the larger scale.

America has been baited into the trap, and the switch is here. It will take time from our point of view, but Satan does not suffer from the time-space orientation of a human lifespan. You must see beyond yourself in order to understand. God takes care of His Covenant children; He brings them Home when their lives have served His glory. Don’t get wrapped up in this life — that’s what Satan wants for you.

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Stay Out of the Way

Posted on February 4, 2025 by ehurst

If you were a political activist type, I could recommend this article to make your blood boil. It’s loaded with claims of injustice under the US Constitution.

By no means would I dispute the account. I’ve had my own run-ins with federal agents acting in ways morally depraved — and I had a law enforcement background that helped me to recognize it. What happened to me was also quite illegal, and I seriously doubt that anyone in government would ever do anything about it. To this day, I can assure you that one or more government agencies are eavesdropping on my communications; it’s been going on for a long time.

Very early in my ministry, the feds associated me with underground militia types, even going so far as lying to random people in my area to see if anyone would confirm their empty suspicions. I’ve had my neighbors confirm to me personally these fishing expeditions. What the feds are looking for doesn’t exist, but they are too stupid to figure that out, and too clumsy to hide it from me.

That’s my point: The federal government is badly broken, and federal law enforcement in particular has very little credibility. Every time you read about some federal arrest — every time — you should be skeptical to the extreme. You should expect the most depraved lack of moral and legal standing for anything a federal officer claims. That won’t change even if Trump gets his way in reforming federal justice.

But it’s worse than that. I would say that everyone who participated in the J6 activities in Washington DC were stupid for trying to provoke arrest. There was nothing to gain being there. Indeed, it was nothing more than gaslighting by federal agents provocateur primarily as a false justification to go after Trump supporters. The protesters took the bait, and I’m not very sympathetic to their complaints.

This has been a case of two nasty idiots slugging it out in a mud pit.

My God is not behind either side. Both sides were prodded by the Devil so that he could generate even more human suffering and injustice. The J6 protests did nothing to help Trump, either. Yes, the formal certification process was what the protesters disrupted. Their noisy intrusion prevented the organized Trump resistance within Congress from doing its job of protesting the election results. By the time Congress met later, the Trump supporters in Congress were defanged. Almost nobody reported that angle.

On a human level, the masses will continue in their utter stupidity about how things work. They will be herded from one false choice to another, and there is no reason to imagine things will get better. The current right-wing enthusiasm about Trump’s efforts as POTUS will turn to shock when the consequences come crashing down on us. Meanwhile, the left-wing spite is entirely misplaced, since lefty dreams have always been lies.

The only proper approach is information warfare, even for those who don’t embrace the Covenant. Unless you have a well-organized army ready to slaughter the enemy, physical action is about as stupid as it gets. Just tell the truth and try to stay out of the way.

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We Testify of His Glory

Posted on February 3, 2025 by ehurst

For me, it’s not enough to say simply that tribulation is coming. In order for me to effectively testify of Christ and His Covenant, I will need to discern whatever I can about how things will happen. To the degree I fail, I trust in divine mercy, but I have a calling to investigate and see the hand of God.

Something I read this morning struck a chord of recognition; it seems a workable explanation — Trump’s Grand Strategy. It would appear that Trump is trying to prepare America for a multipolar world and reassert the old Monroe Doctrine.

All of Trump’s policies, from Panama to Greenland to shutting down the USAID make sense in light of this. Consider:

  • Tariffs on Mexico and Canada. These are, in part, about getting them to crack down on illegal migration and drug trafficking across their borders with the U.S. But they are also a signal that both countries are going to be managed more firmly in the U.S. sphere of influence from now on.
  • Tariffs on China. In a multipolar world, it doesn’t make sense to continue to outsource crucial manufacturing industries to your largest geopolitical competitor.
  • Deportations. It was never in America’s economic interest to tolerate migration of people who consume more in government resources than they pay in taxes. Now it’s not in our geopolitical interest to do so either.
  • The Panama Canal. Bringing the Canal back under U.S. ownership is—as with pressure on Canada and Mexico—reasserting America’s Monroe Doctrine. We are moving from globalism back to the Monroe Doctrine.
  • Greenland. Buying Greenland is consistent with the Monroe Doctrine, as it is part of North America geographically. Pulling it away from Denmark is also consistent with the Monroe Doctrine as it distances the U.S. from Europe.
  • Shutting Down The USAID. This is also consistent with retreating from globalism to the Monroe Doctrine. Under Trump, we’re no longer going to be using NGOs to foment color revolutions in countries like The Ukraine and Georgia.

This analysis gives coherence to the choices Trump appears to be making. We know only what has been reported, and that in itself requires a good bit of discernment.

Unlike the linked article, we have little interest in the investment implications. We still need to notice the economic probabilities, but not for the sake of some investment portfolio. Rather, we should watch and notice how God is working. If we know what humans expect based on their best understanding, we can then discern the things God does in coloring outside those lines.

Our primary aim is to testify of God and His glory.

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I Will Testify

Posted on February 2, 2025 by ehurst

There’s nothing special about me. Any one of you could have ended up in my place. I could easily have ended up dead long ago. I didn’t choose this role; I had other plans. It was thrust upon me. My only contribution was praying rather early in my life that God would find a use for me. What I had imagined that would mean at the time bore little resemblance to what God chose to do with it.

The Covenant stood long ago. For whatever reason, the Lord gave me a vision for it. The longer I looked into it, the more I realized nobody I knew even saw it, much less tried to embrace it. I cannot say what held them back; people who came before me certainly saw it more clearly than I ever did. They were constrained by something that didn’t have a hold on me.

There’s no way I can think of it as anything but a Person. He called and drew me. Whatever you want to call it, this Person knows my name. I have no choice but to obey. I can assure you it has put me in conflict with a lot of people, and that part has only gotten worse. But the Voice is still stronger than the whole world of people trying to hinder me. It sure feels like I’m almost out here alone in some kind of wilderness.

Best I can tell, the Covenant places certain obligations on me. Among those obligations is that I must call on God for His Covenant justice. Another thing is recognizing what isn’t part of that justice. Thus, I have some idea of specifics I can pray about.

I recognize that the country where I live is not just far away from the Covenant, but openly hostile to it. The US pursues a different vision entirely, and has no patience for my message. The mainstream churches ran me off after I had jumped through all the hoops to be ordained. They certainly won’t entertain the message I have. I don’t have much choice but to stand with the few who recognize this message as their own. I’m convinced He wanted someone involved and has accepted our little community simply because we made ourselves available in some way that really pleases Him.

We pray for His justice to fall on America. If the Covenant means anything, that calls for horrific changes. Indeed, an awful lot of injustice has to be broken down. I have no doubt He could have done it at any time, and I’m pretty sure it was in the works in some fashion. It’s going to happen. However, I really do believe our prayers will shape the details to some degree. We keep praying for His glory and Covenant to shine.

Our best understanding is that it leads to some very powerful influences on the coming destruction. Not that we made such specific requests, but that the core issue of divine justice results in God’s decrees to the agents of His wrath. We recognize His fingerprints based on His Word. He has taught us to see moral truth behind the actions of men at large in this world. They don’t have to know, and most of them don’t. That’s just how it works.

Along these lines, I’ve sought to understand some of the mechanics that reflect how God works among men who ignore His Word. That would include things like history, economics, politics, etc. I agree that I’ve come up with an understanding that is radically different from a lot of other people. I can’t speak for them, only what my convictions tell me. Right now, things are looking really good for America, if you tend to think along secular political lines of a conservative flavor.

For now, the policies and economy will look like they are headed for better things for those who embrace a western orientation. It will be pretty shaky along the way (like when some stocks crashed after the Chinese introduced DeepSeek), but it appears that things are getting on a better track. Look for the economic indicators that most people watch to improve.

But at some point, the choices that worldly people make will run into surprises they didn’t expect because they don’t know the Covenant and how God does things. It will be a shock, and it will be very messy and painful. I have no idea when, but my personal sense is that it will come during Trump’s administration.

You can ignore me, or maybe watch to see if I’m a fool, but I challenge you to watch either way. I don’t believe my God was joking when He said He gets involved when His people pray. We are praying for His wrath to fall on sin.

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NT Doctrine — 1 John 1

Posted on February 1, 2025 by ehurst

What made John unique among the apostles is that Jesus caught him rather early in his life, probably just a teenager. There was a very strong personal bond between as they were first cousins, and Jesus acted as if John were His best human friend. Thus, Jesus’ teaching of the ancient Hebraic way versus the Talmudic Judaism of that day really struck John powerfully. He ended up being the most Hebraic of the Twelve.

He wrote this letter around AD 85 from Ephesus. By that time, the city had become the western capital of Christian religion. John had stayed in Judea as long as he could in order to keep his promise to take care of Jesus’ mother. Eventually he had to leave the area. Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Roman army in AD 73 and a great many Christians in Jerusalem ended up in or near Ephesus.

Unlike Greek correspondence, John launches immediately into a prophetic warning: John had been with Jesus during His ministry, saw and heard everything firsthand. Thus, it was easy for him to teach what he experienced personally. He freely shared the whole message, not keeping anything secret, so that his audience could be touched by the Lord and commune in the Holy Spirit. The message itself drew the people, and they became part of John’s treasure on this earth. He was rich!

Being the western capital of Christian religion, Ephesus was also the home of some major heresies. Most of them shared a basic major flaw in denying that Jesus was the Son of God. By this time the Gnostic heresy of legalistic Platonic Dualism was well established. They insisted the Jesus was a man who worked with the Holy Spirit, but the later left Him before the Cross. And it was all based on speculation and reason, whereas John’s message was direct from Jesus Himself.

God does not divide Himself between competing philosophical assumptions. He has only one message, and it is His Son. If anyone keeps walking in the flesh, then they know nothing of Jesus. It has always been God’s requirement that people repent and condemn their fleshly lusts. The fleshly nature must be bound and forced to serve the spirit. God is all about holiness in this world and in Eternity. Anyone who taught that God didn’t care about what your flesh did was a liar. Those who would become part of His family must join Jesus on the Cross. But how sweet was the fellowship of those who did this!

Thus, you must confess that your flesh is wicked and sinful and then seek to lock it down by the power of Christ’s Spirit. Our Lord is faithful in forgiving our sins. His power is sufficient to cleanse us so that we can walk in purity in this life.

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